Starting a career

Greetings everyone,

I have some very general question about starting a new careers for myself in the industry. I enjoy making Flash applications with Actionscript and would love to get paid to do that. I have done some jobs for friends for free so far but obviously can't keep doing that. For an idea of what I can do and what I enjoy doing, some examples of work I have done are online at http://peterhastieshowcase.blogspot.com

- As someone with a very limited portfolio of work, am I more likely to be successful at getting freelance work or a full time job?

- Do I need to go back to school? I have a BSc and PhD in a completely unrelated field. If so, should I be considering design or computer science courses?

- Am I being realistic to expect that I can make enough money as a full time developer to make that my only source of income?

Any input at this stage would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers,
Pete

Well Pete, this is a world of portfolios and skill. An outstanding portfolio will outweigh most degrees in most situations where anyone knows anything. A degree doesn't mean much if your work still sucks.

I would suggest starting out doing work for free (like you are now) and still do the best you possibly can to help build your skills and build a decent portfolio. Then slowly get into the freelance territory and expect to get paid in pennies basically. Poke in the Freelance forum here and pick up work.

I've always found it a bonus to ACT better than you are. Being humble about yourself only goes so far. But of course, this varies on your own self confidence. I've taken on work before that I said I know all about and literally had to start cracking into a book to even use the correct jargon, but in the end, I knew that I'd be able to do it. You don't want to oversell then underperform.

And yes, it's very realistic that someone can expect to make money as a full time developer. In fact, MANY people do it. Are you capable of doing it? Only time will tell. For some people, programming and all this work just clicks, and for others it doesn't.

Good luck, it's a tough world out there!

Thanks for the feedback, Taco. It sounds like I'm going along the right lines at this point. I'll look into the Freelance boards and see if anyone bites.

Have a good start to the week,
Pete

I've just started working for myself too- the job situation is rubbish and it seemed the best thing to do. Woking as a designer and producer I've hooked up with a couple of very good developers willing to go out on a limb and split the revenue when it comes in. Our first projects are nearly finished and I expect to make enough money for it to have almost been worthwhile for all of us! Re-using the assets and producing the next wave of releases might make it all more worthwhile next time though.
I'm looking into additional revenue from the first project though- Micro-Transactions or a download version or whatever. It's turned out so well I'm determined to double the money we could have expected from a sponsor.
So good luck Pete. If you can make good games quickly then there is a living to be made. Being clever with re-using assets will be essential in the long term because a quick turnaround is gonna be crucial.

There are "job boards" on the internet which post small to large flash projects companies want making for them, from games to websites. ive seen them pay like £500-2000+ for the projects.

maybe it wouldnt be a good fulltime job as other companies will compete for the projects, but it would be good backup money id think?

try finding them?